I'm mostly, but not exclusively, referring to Kanye West. I don't humor the "Ye" thing because as part of his god complex he started using it because he saw the King James version of the Bible and its abundant use of "Ye" as directly speaking to him. That's not the only example; in fact unless I grossly misheard one of the "good" tracks that was recommended to me, Kanye West outright says "I'M A GOD" in it.
Yes yes eccentric genius and all of that. I don't like god complexes, no matter how rich and famous someone gets. I don't grant eccentric genius passes for them and sometimes I wonder why almost everyone else seems to. :doomer:
nah it doesn’t have to do with the bible, people have been calling him ye forever simply just because his name is kanYE
I'd be more accepting of some sort of "be your own personal god" emancipation ideology, but what Kanye West pushes now is a cult to himself that craves followers, in particular children. He's even going for the isolated insulated community compound thing now with the "YeCosystem." :sus-soviet:
When I pray
I pray to myself
And sometimes
I answer
:Marenghi-stare:
It's got nothing to do with being old. It's just part of not being brainwashed by liberalism.
Even in this thread, there's some "but the music's great" as if that justifies anything.
If Hitler was a sufficiently impressive painter, would I have to accept "but his paintings were great" as an implied cushion against criticism of him too?
As least Roman society had the decency to only worship the emperor when he's dead.
The Emperors were just much easier to trust after that fact.
I don't either, because I never got into his music, and now that he's out as a Nazi, I'm glad I never did.
Selection bias. People who don't think they're god don't gain extraordinary success in entertainment. To be a good entertainer, you have to be a narcissist.
I don't fully believe that. It's too wide a presumption, and even if it were true, there are degrees of severity between, say, Fred Rogers and Kanye West.
Well, those two might be in the same industry but they aren't in the same class. Rogers is an entertainer, but Kanye is in the celebrity business. It really isn't the same thing. One is an educator who made a tv show for kids back in the 1950s, the other is a musician in the age of the influencer. Celebrity runs on narcissism. Managing and selling someone's personal image is what work consists of in this buiness and nowadays it doesn't even need a starting point such as 'being a movie star'. People are famous because being famous is their job.
You said "good entertainer" not "celebrity" in your first reply and Fred Rogers was also a celebrity arguably.
That said, yeah, in a post Paris Hilton world, it does seem "famous for being famous" is the only kind of famous that matters.
Not me, I'm somebody else. And yes I agree. There are different levels of achievement when it comes to entertainment. You don't need to be a narcissist to be a good singer. But the music industry does select for a given type of personality. What I'm saying is that I don't think Fred Rogers is a good comparison here.
Sure, Rogers achieved celebrity status. I'm not an american and I never even saw a Fred Rogers show but I am aware of him. Someone who watched the shows in their formative years have personal reasons to remember the man fondly. And then there's this media I randomly consumed at some point on YouTube. These two relations are distinct and interdependent. Rogers had an impact as an educator and a media person, which leads to his memorialization. One feeds into the other.
The difference from an industry of celebrity is that (presumably) Fred Rogers didn't get started with the proverbial 'you are really good at this kid, I'm gonna turn you into a star'. Turning out icons is the beginning and the end of the music and film industries. Maybe someone in the studio always had the idea of turning Fred Rogers into the biggest edutainer in America, but I'm guessing children's public broadcasting is rather chill and less cocaine fueled than, say, the 17th circle of hell otherwise known as the k-pop industry.
It's too bad you never saw the show. It went hard even if its reputation among the masses is sort of Flanderized (the show covered the Vietnam War in its first week and discussed political assassinations a short time later!) and just about every criticism that Mr. Rogers made of pop culture and the direction it was heading came to pass, regarding what lasting damage is done to children and to extension to society when its entertainment complex only cares about profits and sensationalism.
From what you're describing Fred Rogers and the work surrounding him was about caring for children and edifying their lives. That sort of work selects for someone who is humane. It's entertainment sure but it's at least 6-7 parallel universes detached from, say, Tom Cruise, who has a literal cult built around him. While the next Fred Rogers is studying to be a teacher, the next Kanye West is making a tik tok duet in their grandma's funeral for views. And if life rewards you with fame and fortune for something like that, you'd have 0 reasons not to behave like a god. You've been pre-selected for narcissism and your narcissism puts food on the table of dozens of investors, thousands of brand consultants, and millions of underpaid bengali footwear assemblers. Not to mention the scores of people who do worship you.
So really, what I'm trying to ask is: can you think of someone in the same business as Kanye West who is comparatively down to earth? And if so, wouldn't you say it's probably down to either a) they have a brand-image of someone who's good, kind natured? (Ellen Degeneres lmao), or b) their individual psychology?
You have to have some way to surpass shame, embarrassment, imposter syndrome, stage fright, and all the other things we keep the majority of people from achieving their dreams. It's not always narcissism, I think capitalism has encouraged that route though.
I think god complex or atleast narcissism is something that comes with being really good at art. Imagine a bunch of people saying youre great everyday, if just makes you have a healthy self-esteem, great, but I find it often goes past that into the "I'm better than you" territory.
My more personal theory is that being good at art is a lot of chasing what you "like." Who's better at deciding what they like and what is thr best than a narcissist? I think people without this trait are open to explore new things or question why they like something which in turn slows down progression in a specific area.
For me, its never a surprise that musicians start coming out to be freaks.
I think people without this trait are open to explore new things or question why they like something which in turn slows down progression in a specific area.
Outside of entertainment, narcissists seem to slow down progress more often than not because if it doesn't glorify themselves, they will sabotage it. See what :my-hero: did to wreck mass transit endeavors in California alone.
narcissists seem to slow down progress more often than not because if it doesn’t glorify themselves, they will sabotage it
Also see the most recent Chapo episode for discussion on that
I already elaborated what I meant with my comment but I mean with Musk you can argue that he perceives hes really good at it.
I disagree. I've had the privilege of knowing some truly accomplished professors who were at the bleeding edge of their respective fields. One thing they all had in common was humility enough to be aware there was a lot they did not know and still much to learn.
Maybe it's different for musicians; wasn't my bunch in college.
that comes with being really good at something
I was responding to that part. It seemed very open ended.
If we're only talking about musicians, Masayoshi Soken made some amazing stuff for Final Fantasy XIV and as far as I know doesn't have a god complex. Some eccentricity, sure, but a class act overall.
But you don't actually know the guy. He could be an absolute asshole in real life. He could be great of course too. I've met many musicians without zero percent humility or only express humility as a humble brag/religious expression because theyre jerks irl.
Not all great musicians are assholes but I've noticed how weird people and disconnected people get when they start emerging in the field.
Maybe. I already left open that possibility. I do know he hasn't done any "IMMA LET YOU FINISH" moments, doesn't announce himself as a god in his music, and isn't setting up a "SokenSystem" cult compound.
Hahaha no but thatd be tight because I dont think Kanye was ever good enough to warrant his ego.
If you're interested a lot of Hip-hop (seeing as you're using the Kanye example) uses langauge that draws heavily from The Five-Percenters, prodominetly New York artists. I know this isn't the overall point of your message, and I do agree celebrities are just going full maks-off with their insanity, but I thought I might add a little bit of extra information on the formation of "GOD" in popular hip-hop culture.
Nick Mullen, who has a level of pathological self-loathing equal to Kanye's narcissism, has a really good analogy for the creative process. It's like looking at your dick, then taking a magnifying glass to it in order to get a better idea about it. After studying it for so long you forget you are using a magnifying glass. Then you show your dick to someone else and you say "Look how big my dick is!" and they are confused because all they see is how tiny your dick is.
The point is that famous artists are usually people who have convinced themselves, and everyone else around them, that their dick is enormous, regardless of it's actual size. People who, like 40k orcs, believe so strongly in their version of reality that they have kinda managed to manifest a part of it into the real world. Maybe there is a hint of the divine there, but, like the deities of old, it requires a sacrifice. Normally that sacrifice is of perspective, humility, or generally some level of sanity. And that is because it has to be, because the first person you have convince is yourself.
